Rutherford

Examination of Canadian Pacific coast groundfish research surveys over the past 40 years shows an increasing trend in the precision of species identification for the non-target species. In particular, invertebrates, small finfish and many pelagic species were originally lumped into higher taxonomic groupings or not identified at all. As the focus of these surveys expanded beyond commercially important groundfish to incorporate additional objectives (e.g. ecosystem and species at risk research), the precision in species identification of all animals encountered increased dramatically commencing in 2002.